At this point, you may be thinking “seems great for developers, but what benefits does the rest of the NZ population get from these changes?”
As restrictions on the type of homes you can build start to ease, we’re likely to begin to see a wider array of houses being built. Not only that but these changes aim to remove a lot of the headache and associated costs involved with applying for resource consents when building your dream home.
For those property owners who are fortunate to own large sections, these changes will allow you to build multiple dwellings without the need to subdivide, so long as they meet the new required building standards. This allows you to live or rent out a second or third dwelling, however selling it separately is likely to be more complicated.
“The new medium-density residential standards will enable existing sites to have three properties without any subdivision,” says the HUD spokesperson in Stuff’s recent article.
So if you’ve outgrown your home but have a section that can fit a granny flat that meets the standards on it - you can officially start planning come August 2022.